INTRODUCTION

From the Head Master

Welcome to the 2018/9 edition of The Peterite and I am sorry that it has taken so long to produce, being delayed by the need to manoeuvre the school through the challenges of COVID.

I have enjoyed looking back on that time, and my first year at St Peter’s, a great deal. Recalling the triumph at Rosslyn Park, the creativity of pupils in art exhibitions such as Imagine 19 and school productions including Beauty and the Beast as well as the outstanding exam results that year served to reinforce all I knew when I moved to York. St Peter’s holds academic achievement, skills, interests and values as equal priorities, giving pupils tremendous amounts of challenge and fun, while preparing them to make a positive impact on their world.

I hope you enjoy reminiscing as much as I have. I am indebted to all those who have written contributions for this year’s magazine and the team who have worked so assiduously on its publication.

Meet the Head Master

Mr Walker joined St Peter’s School as Head Master in January 2019. In this special interview, Mr Walker talks about his career to date and his vision for St Peter’s in conversation with the Heads of School, Ben and Hope.

What inspired your choice of career? (Hope) I had a number of options before settling on teaching. My father served in the Gurkhas and one of my ambitions was to follow in his footsteps. However, the Gurkhas were being reduced in numbers and at the time there seemed to be fewer opportunities in the military. Farming was a thought, and I was a lambing shepherd for several years in holidays and spent six months as a jackaroo on a sheep farm in the Falkland Islands. I also dabbled with the thought of going into the law and considered the world of business. Ultimately though I had a great time at a similar school to St Peter’s and so I decided to become a teacher and have never regretted that choice.

What school have you most enjoyed working at (and why is it St Peter’s)? (Ben) The school I have most enjoyed working at is genuinely St Peter’s. I love the atmosphere of the place and it is the pupils and my colleagues who make it so great, in terms of the buzz and appetite for getting involved. I don’t think any other school matches our setting with 50 acres of beautiful grounds and then you walk out of the gates and five minutes later you’re in what I think is the best city in the entire country in which to live - York. I also enjoy having all the age groups in one school from 2 to 18 and that St Peter’s is a co-ed school.

What is your vision for St Peter’s? (Hope) My vision for St Peter’s is to make it the best version of itself it can be. I wanted to come to St Peter’s because it is such a fantastic school. It has the best combination I have seen of strong academics with the most amazingly busy co-curricular programme, which is so important in a good education. A good vision starts with having real clarity about the nature, purpose and identity of the school, and then it’s about furthering that and identifying where development is needed. When I first arrived, I met with all the staff and tutor groups from Fifth to Upper Sixth and asked them what makes St Peter’s great, what

were we not doing that we should be doing and what were we doing that we could be doing differently or better. That was a great starting point and as a result of conversations like that and among many other things, we have looked at the flow of education from 3-18, have enhanced our Sixth Form programme and developed the role of Tutoring. Increasing the use of technology and introducing Computing Science are other important and enjoyable strands. St Peter’s is an important landmark in the city and in the region, so partnerships such as the York Independent State School Partnership are also important.

What’s been your biggest challenge so far at St Peter’s? (Ben) I try really hard to get around the school as much as possible and spend time with pupils and colleagues, supporting at concerts or plays or sports fixtures, and also just seeing the day-to-day activities. As Head Master, I have a fast-paced job which is incredibly varied and occasionally quite complex, and in amongst all that I want to be involved with the life of the school community as much as possible. I think that is definitely my biggest challenge because there is just so much that goes on at St Peter’s. If you look at Twitter for example, you see the sheer volume of activities that are happening every day. No matter how hard I try, I will never experience more than a fraction of the activities that take place here.

On teaching values, what do you think are the most important skills required for life beyond school and do you think St Peter’s is successful in giving pupils these qualities? (Hope) There is a difference between skills and values. Broadly speaking, skills are abilities and values are outlooks. St Peter’s has seven values including friendship, humility and hope which are deeply important. Anyone can be a success when the sun is shining but it is your values, more than your skills, that will get your through the challenging times. Skills are also crucial because exam results get you job interviews but it’s the person who walks through the door who gets the job. We live in a qualification driven society, but I sometimes say you need to get three Cs and an F out of school – Confidence, Commitment, Communication and Flexibility. Instinctively, St Peter’s develops an enormous skillset through the whole combination of the academic, the co-curricular, the pastoral. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2018 lists skills such as emotional intelligence, leadership, social influence, creativity, originality, initiative, critical thinking, persuasion and negotiation, resilience, flexibility and complex problem-solving as being central for life. We develop all those skills at St Peter’s through the nature of the place, but it gets really interesting when you start developing them in a more mindful way. For example, we have created extra time for Tutoring to enable us to really sit down with pupils and look at their personal development. I think that when you do things mindfully you multiply the impact enormously, without taking the joy out of the process. Can you tell us about your experiences of boarding and whether it would be a good idea to replicate them at St Peter’s? (Ben) Unashamedly, I loved boarding. I went to a wonderful ‘muddy knees and fresh air’ prep school on the outskirts of Salisbury with treehouses in the grounds, and then onto Sherborne which was a full boarding school for boys but with the advantage of a girls boarding school in the same town. I just love the character of a boarding house, the atmosphere and the fun of it. Boarding teaches you so many skills. It teaches you to be self-reliant, to stand on your own two feet, to accept the fact that you can’t always have things your own way. Even though you have to make compromises, life lived in community is one of the most amazing experiences you can have. I think all the best bits about boarding are already here at St Peter’s in much more comfortable accommodation and having York on your doorstep is a massive advantage.

The School’s Motto is Over Ancient Ways. How do you think St Peter’s is prepared for the future? (Hope) I think St Peter’s is incredibly well set for the future. My mission is to make sure its foundations are hugely secure for the next thirty, forty, fifty years. One of the brilliant things about such an ancient school is that it gives you so much confidence to enact change whilst preserving and promoting the core spirit of the school. We have gone from being a small monastic school, located in buildings all over York to a school for pupils from eight to eighteen and today we are co-educational and educate from two to eighteen. It gives great confidence, knowing that preceding generations have also thought about the future, reflected on the present and built on the past.

What song you would choose for House Sing and how you would choreograph it? (Ben) I will start by saying that my dance skills are more mythical than legendary! Maybe a Killers track like Human with some astonishingly tasteful, well-chosen and well-delivered choreography.

What has been your favourite role in school, teacher, Housemaster or Head Master? (Hope) The role of Head Master gives me the most satisfaction. I never set out with the goal of becoming a Head, but what kept me moving towards the role was gradually seeing more of the jigsaw puzzle of a school and having the opportunity to contribute more to the shaping of a place. As a Head Master, it is often the case that when you do your job well, amazing things happen for other people that they never see your fingerprints on. I miss the relationships you build with pupils as a Housemaster or a teacher, when you have a more direct impact on individuals and can see that in them as they grow and develop. I have a wistful nostalgia for that, although I am fortunate that from time to time that does happen and being a Head Master does give me the opportunity to make a much bigger difference.